"Is this how it ends…"
Noctys muttered, her voice barely more than a whisper lost in the wind.
She lay sprawled across the scorched earth, the remnants of her once-regal form clinging to existence. Her face was smudged with ash and dirt, but it wasn't the pain that made her tremble—it was the void. Everything below her neck had been obliterated, her body severed as if she were no more than a discarded puppet.
She couldn't move.
She could barely feel.
And worst of all—she couldn't stop what was coming.
In the distance, the sound of footsteps echoed.
Soft. Steady. Closer.
Each step pounded like a war drum in her skull, an ominous herald of the end. The air was growing colder, heavier, as if the world itself was mourning what was about to befall her.
With each echoing step, Noctys's face turned paler.
Her breath hitched in her throat.
"Just why…" she murmured again, voice hollow with disbelief.
None of this should have happened.
Her plan had been perfect.
